Growth

I was reading an article about church growth last night and wondering what the hubbub was all about. I guess I question it because I've often thought of church growth simply as a growth in numbers. Today, that is an idea that irritates me. We are a counting society; we want to know how many and how much. Maybe it's because it is so much easier to quantify a body in a seat rather than a life in action.

I was reading a summary of another book the came out with a new "buzzword" to me but one I might like. You may have heard the terms "reaching the unchurched" or "seeker-sensitive service." The new one on me was that we become "sinner-sensitive churches." The idea was that we realize we are all sinners, not better than the next person who walks in the door, and minister that way. Does it matter if the next person who walks in has a drinking problem, drug problem, gambling problem or pride problem? Not if we are sinner-sensitive, not if we realize those are the people Jesus was drawn to, not if we realize we are no different.

I've got a lot of things bouncing around in my head and 2008 might be the year I really start to think out loud more. I may use this blog as my sounding board for myself, not looking for arguments or support, simply a place to write down my ideas and begin to unscramble them in an attempt to find who God wants me to be, what God wants me to be doing. While many of the things going on in my feeble noggin' are counter to what I'm used to, I don't hold negative ideas about what I or the church have done in the past. I only want to look forward, to find where God might lead me and others to change the world. A part of that change starts with me.